Community Nursing Essay

Community Nursing Essay When a poet who has met the devil calls Riuchin a talentless artist, he accepts the claim and inwardly agrees that he does not believe in his writing. He understands that the society needs artists like him. This harsh reality that I saw in the novel impressed me. It has made me notice links between the story and my generation. The description of art under the regime is one of my favorite aspects of the novel. The artists’ association, MASSOLIT, depicts how artists operated in the Soviet Union. Art is used as a propaganda tool, and the state controls art through bribery. It is ironic to see artists, whose independence is essential for the creative process, being manipulated by the state through petty materialistic entitlements. Artists here worry more about the size of summer house they will receive for their vacation than their work. When the value of their work is questioned, they affirm their lack of talent; yet their social position is too valuable to give up, as reflected in the thoughts of the poet Riuchin. Inside the front cover was scribbled a name, illegible. The book, or so my dad told me, had been given to him as a gift from a patient, but he had never even opened it. Instead it had been reconciled to a life on the shelf, watching the world but not participating in it. I realized that was what learning should be and that is how I want to learn. At the end of my eighth grade year we moved to Texas and as I was packing, I stumbled upon my copy of Pride and Prejudice. It was all bent and worn and it looked longingly at me as if it had been waiting for me. I picked up the book and read it in a single sitting, almost five consecutive hours enraptured by it. I came across Pride and Prejudice at a cheap bookstore, it was all weathered and yellowed and had the dusty scent of a book that was well worn in. I judged the book by its pretty, lavender cover and just had to buy it. At first read, I was enamoured with Mr. Darcy, yearning for a love story as deep and profound as in the novel. Little, fifth grade me just hoped that maybe the next day in class the boy sitting next to me might profess that he loved me all along. Mediocrity is appreciated since it does not question the status quo. I am drawn to St. John’s College because I know I will be among friendsâ€"the books that speak ten thousand more words than what is written on the page. I especially look forward to the different perspectives and the debates that will come from having an entire community bound together by the richness of the program. I want to learn and discover truths and find questions I didn’t know I had. Throughout my high school career we were stuck on these desks, asked to raise our hands to speak, told what was right from wrong, all around a very uninspiring environment. When I finished Pride and Prejudice, I thought it would quickly be replaced by another book and my love for it left behind snug in the worn out pages of my copy. I found more happy endings after that, not all too surprising but none had the same effect as Pride and Prejudice&mash;that feeling of a book leaving its fingerprint on you. The Book Thief offered my first insight into a world painted in shades of grey, my first introduction to what would become my quest for understandingâ€"of humanity, of the world around me, of myself. It inspired me as a learner and as a writer to explore and question and, above all, to define my own truth. The Book Thief, in exploring such a profound theme, stood in a stark contrast to the mechanical nature of the public education system through which I’ve journeyed. In my prior schooling, we were taught to accept only one truth as the absolute truth. It changed my perceptions of myself and of the world around me. More pieces of the puzzle left by my forbearers, both Jewish and German, fall into place. My first introduction to The Book Thief came when I plucked it from the bookshelf in my dad’s officeâ€"with permission, for I felt no desire to fulfill the irony of stealing a book about thievery. Fingers fumbling over the smooth cover and crisp spine, I prepared myself for a new journey. It had a distinct new-book smell, fresh and crisp and full of promise. I had no idea how a classroom could be thought-provoking and truly educational until I went to the Summer Academy at St. John’s. In the seminars I felt an energy of pure passion, every single person shared this love for learning that I had neverexperienced before. I had never been in a classroom where we were so freely allowed to ask questions.